Movable barriers, such as upward acting sectional or single panel garage doors, residential and commercial rollup doors, and slidable and swingable gates, are used to alternatively allow and restrict entry to building structures and property. These barriers are driven between their respective open and closed positions by coupled barrier moving units, sometimes referred to as “barrier operators”, and in the specific case of a door, as “door operators,” and in the even more specific case of a garage door, as “garage door operators.”
For example, a typical garage door operator for driving an upward acting sectional garage door between its open and closed positions includes, as a central control unit, a microcontroller for (i) processing incoming user-actuated door instructions and (ii) generating output control signals corresponding to these instructions; a motor controller for receiving and transmitting these control signals to a motor; and a DC or AC motor drivingly coupled to the garage door. The user-actuated door instructions are in the form of wired or wireless signals transmitted to the microcontroller from interior or exterior wall consoles or from proximately located hand held or vehicle mounted RF transmitters.
With the near ubiquity of the Internet and the proliferation of electronic devices and equipment designed to access the Internet, such as personal computers, cellphones, and Smartphones, systems are currently being designed and implemented in the trade that enable non-proximate, or remote, monitoring and control, via the Internet, of a variety of home appliances, building doors, and the like. For example, if a homeowner is not in proximity to its residence, and needs to determine whether the garage door it had intended to close, did in fact close, or whether the garage door it needed to leave open for a workman to enter had, in fact, been left open, using one of these systems, he/she can, through access over the Internet, remotely monitor the status of the garage door (e.g., whether it is open or closed). Moreover, if the garage door is not in the desired position, these systems are designed to also enable the homeowner to transmit change of door status commands over the Internet to effect the desired position, all without having to be physically proximate the garage to do so.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,998,977 (“the '977 patent”), issued to The Chamberlain Group, Inc., generally describes one type of such system. According to that description, the garage door status (open, closed, opening, closing, or at a mid-point location) is sent over a network interface to the network (i.e., the Internet) in response to request(s) for such status. While the disclosed system does provide for remote monitoring of the garage door status, it suffers from a variety of drawbacks. For example, because the status of the door is sent only in response to a request for such status, the system must necessarily account for two-way communication over the network interface and the network—first, the status request, and then, the status—which necessarily introduces an undesirable lag in time necessitated by this back and forth propagation. Moreover, this required two-way communication (and consequent display) will necessarily require increased bandwidth, and bandwidth (particularly cellular data bandwidth) can be expensive in today's world.
In addition, neither of the network interfaces described in the '977 patent is adequate for optimum performance nor do they effectively address the complexities involved with the monitoring and control of door status in multiple door arrangements. Thus, there is a need for a new and improved communication system that enables a user, by way of a network such as the Internet, to more effectively remotely monitor and control the status of movable barriers, specifically one that avoids the inefficiency of status requests, incorporates new and improved means for enabling independent change, from a single source, of the door status of any one of multiple doors, and otherwise incorporates features that meet the convenience, response time, and communication demands of today's fast paced society.